The next stage of Formula 1's engine debate

Dieter Rencken discusses the likelihood of a Resource Restriction Agreement being imposed on Formula 1's engine manufacturers and ponders the significance of potential disagreements between Renault Sport and the team that bears its name

While hot and cold blown diffusers and their ramifications were the talk of Silverstone – with the FIA issuing a clarification on the matter on Thursday – a different kind of power play was enacted in Bernie Ecclestone's sombre motorhome at the sharp end of the paddock, with no less than five team principals meeting with him to discuss engine matters present and future.

Almost simultaneously an FIA-called meeting was concentrating minds elsewhere, with the topic of discussion being cost saving and control under the 2014 V6 engine regulations. Therefore at roughly the same time during a rather fraught weekend, three engine-related issues were being discussed; all of them only peripherally related to each other.